Collecting strategy?
I just starting collecting comic books I was just wondering if there is good strategies to find old issues of certain books. Are used book places and flea markets good places to find books and one last question what in the world is a trade?
Comments
Not to be confused with HC (Hardcover version of the same)
Not to be confused (again!) with Graphic Novel or OGN, which is a story specifically written for the larger sized book (ex. the recent Black Canary/Zatanna Bloodspell book). Some people use Graphic Novel and Trade interchangeably. Shun them. :) <- joking
A good strategy if you've found a book/run you want to collect that's been out for a while is to hit the stores and conventions where you might find copies of the books in the cheap bins. You can fill the slots in your runs until you get down to that one or two issues that just elude you. Then you can look online for sellers who'll help you get those last few books in your grubby little meathooks. :)
A trade is shorthand for a trade paperback (TPB). A TPB is a bound collection of issues such as what you might find on the shelves at a bookstore. Typically collecting ~6 issues.
Thank you so much guys!! :)
But going into your local comic book shop(s) and getting to know the owner/staff is the best way to start building a collection. You'll find that they will look for books for you…. suggest titles and issues that fit your interests…… hold back a prime book if they know you. More than once (and with multiple dealers) a special book would be held back and sold to me at a discount. One - because of the relationship I built over the years and two - I was a consistent and good customer. Depending on what you collect will depend on what stores you frequent. There are a lot of shops that have plenty of modern $1 box fodder, but if you are looking for Silver or Bronze age books, you'll need to search out that dealer.
And most importantly…… learn how to grade books. Learn how various dealers grade books. Not all dealers grade the same way. If you're buying from someone on-line for the first time…. buy a few books only to make sure you agree with their grading.
Always use your LCS (local comic shop) when you can, at least for some items, especially bags, boards, and boxes and even new books, but you can occasionally find hard to find back issues via eBay or websites like www.atomicavenue.com
Happy hunting!
Cons are great place to go to bin dive. If you have a local show that had a decent admission price that's a good way to go and do other fun con stuff. But make sure it's a good comic show and not a celebrity focused con like Wizard. Why pay $65 plus parking to bin-dive for 50 cent books?
Many of us on the forums use Discount Comic Book Service. It's a store in Indiana (right?) that I'll say was one of the pioneers of using the internet to collect pre-order sales for books. They'll allow you to buy your books at a nice discount (sometimes 50% off) provided you order 3 months in advance in accordance with this month's Previews.
The Good:
- Cheap books. A $4 title will run you maybe $2.39. A $3 title can go as low as a buck fifty. To say nothing of the trade discounts. You will save money provided you're ordering enough. (Shipping is $7 regardless of order size. Generally if you're ordering more than $50 a month, you're good).
- That money you're saving can go toward your LCS (Local Comicbook Store) or put some extra gas in your tank.
The (not really) Bad:
- You're buying your books 3 months in advance. DCBS is ordering your books 3 months in advance. There are no cancellations. Well, there are within reason, but they need to be good reasons. So you have to make that commitment that you want the books you want.
- If you ship your books monthly (I do) you may have to wait the whole month while everyone talks about how awesome a book that came out the first of the month is.
www.dcbservice.com
Check it out and see if it's something you'd be interested in. It's a great way to collect NEW titles. They don't really have a back-issue bin.
Good:
Generally excellant customer service (although it can take a few days for them to reply to emails - i have generally found for some reason they respond to emails on Monday or Tuesday but not the rest of the week - that is only my experience though)
The inbetween good and (not really) bad:
The sister site for DCBS is instock trades. Great discounts and lots of new and old stuff. However, unlike the name implies, not everything on their site is in stock. I have had many orders where after a few days I get an email stating that a item is unavailable. They are fanastic about replacing the unavailable item with something else. And they usually will send what is availabe first, then send the replacement item - eating the shipping costs of the 2nd shipment themselves.
The (Not Really) Bad:
Because of preordering 3 months, usually people will have ordered 3 or 4 issues of a series before they get the first issue. If it turns out you do not like the series, you are stuck with the next couple issues too.
This is what often gives me pause when I'm asking my LCS to remove a book from my pull list. I will often say, "If you put the next issue or two in my file, then I'll buy them."
Investors buy comics with a track record of continuous growth in value (gold, silver, and some bronze age). These comics are not likely to ever decline in value, but are unlikely to see sharp increases, since the characters are all known commodities.
Speculators try to figure out what comic is going to be hot in the future. While it is possible to make quick money on these books, it takes a lot more time reviewing what is going on in the comic industry, as well as in movies and TV. If you buy ahead of the rush, you can make some money, but, if a project/movie, etc. falls through or bombs, your books may never increase in value.
Finally, is hoarders. These people buy all the new comics they can, with the expectation that eventually, they will be worth something, without understanding what made gold and silver age books scarce (world wars, paper drives (old comics actually had ads encouraging people to turn in books to support war production), returnable comics, etc., no such thing as bags and boards) that will never occur again. These people think they hit the jackpot, because their copy of Walking Dead #1 is now worth $1,000, without doing the math to figure out that for every WD#1, they bought thousands of #1s in in the last 15 years that have never were worth more than their cover price, have gone down in value, or have gone up, but slower than inflation (i.e., basically a decline in value).
I buy lots of new comics, because we are in a time, where there are probably more good comics being produced than ever before, but I don't bother with bagging and boarding them. The difference in condition of bagging vs. gently stacking in a long box is not worth the time and money. The same money used on flipping gold and silver books is going to make me way more money in the long run.
The two sites I primarily use are mycomicshop.com and atomicavenue.com. Both sell back issues for quite cheap. Maybe you can get them cheaper at an LCS but I haven't noticed that personally. midtowncomics.com also has a good selection but tend to be a little pricier. Ebay is a last resort for me.
http://www.comiccollectorlive.com